I often get asked how we find enough news to report on in a small, rural community. “Nothing ever happens in a small town,” some folks say.

Well, that is not quite true. In fact, it is not true at all. Lots of things happen in a small town. Some good, some not so good, and some bad.

There is always something for us to go and cover.

Toss in the fact that we try and cover all of Faribault County, not just Blue Earth, and well, the reality is there is so much news that we can barely get it all in each week.

We get a lot of our news by covering local city council, school board and county board meetings, as well as some committee meetings of those entities.

Then we also hear a lot of news just by being out in the community. People tell us a lot of things. You might consider some of it just to be gossip, but we in the news biz call it tips.

Of course, some of those tips actually are just gossip, and we ignore all those kinds of things which are not really newsworthy for printing in a newspaper. However, some of those newsy items are really a great idea for us to develop into a story for the Faribault County Register.

We do get a lot of story ideas from administrators, law enforcement personnel, business people, officials and other sources.

But, I also love getting story ideas from friends, neighbors and you, our readers.

Take the story on this week’s front page about Joe Salisbury being in New York City during 9/11. That story idea came from Joe’s neighbor, Andrew Hunt Bittinger, who heard Joe tell about his experiences. Andrew called me with the tip that it could be a great story.

He was right. It is.

Sometimes we are out covering an event, or at a game, or meeting, or church, or, well, you get the idea, and someone says, “Hey, you should do a story about ….” (fill in the blank). Sometimes it is an idea we have already done a story on, or it is something that is actually already on our story idea list, but we just have not had time to get to it … yet.

That is right, we have story lists. Publisher Lori Nauman, reporters Kevin Mertens and Fiona Green and I meet every week, on Friday mornings, just to discuss story ideas, make story assignments for the coming week, and share news tips we have heard about. As the editor, I then get to decide what we are going to pursue, and which of the three writers (two reporters and myself) will be doing which stories.

News-wise, it has been an interesting couple of weeks lately. While there have been few meetings to cover these past two weeks, we have been busy with back-to-school stories, fall sports preview stories, and a chance to catch up on other story ideas.

Not all of our news tips pan out. We run into people who don’t wish to have their story told in a newspaper, and we respect that. We run into cases where the tip is not true, or there is not really enough info to develop into a story.

That happened last week when I got a call from someone who said Kwik Trip was shut down. Turned out it was, but just to check if there was a gas leak. Another tip was about a woman who was camping at the Blue Earth City Campground. A local bike enthusiast had met her at Giant Park. She was from New Zealand and spending three months traveling across the U.S. with her two young children. However, she was packed up and leaving by the time we had a chance to check it out.

Right now, I count five different story ideas on my list that came as tips from people I know, or who publisher Lori Nauman knows, or who our two reporters know, or from folks like you, our Register readers. That is great, so please keep those ideas coming.

Believe it or not, one of the ideas on the list came from a Register reader in California. So you see, we never know where these tips may come from. The story is about something in California, but it does have a local, Blue Earth connection.

Stay tuned for more on that story idea.

Right now, we are looking for story ideas for a farm magazine we are going to do, our annual Our Heroes magazine, Medical Guide, a home improvement section, bridal issue, and of course, our annual Good News Edition in December. Yes, we do plan ahead that far.

Got an idea for a story we should do? You can call me with it at the Register at 507-526-7324 or email me at chunt@faribaultcountyregister.com. Or stop me on the street and tell me in person.

Like I said, some of the tips we get turn out to be great stories, like the one about Joe Salisbury this week, but some don’t quite pan out for one reason or another.

However, no matter what, I do like getting news tips from our readers. Just like I appreciate all those faithful weekly readers of the Register.

Like you.